A very special First Communion
By Katherine Long
Sun associate editor

   With her father’s hands guiding her and her mother and sister gathered close, Graceanne D’Alberto received an incredibly special gift last Saturday: her first Holy Communion. For many years, it was a moment her family never thought they’d see.

   When Mark and Bethany D’Alberto brought their first daughter Gracie home from the hospital nine years ago, she weighed just five pounds and swam in clothes meant for preemies. A complication in the womb, called intrauterine growth restriction, had delayed Gracie’s development. Doctors and her parents were unsure what it would mean for the little girl long-term.

   “We knew there was a complication, but there are kids [with the same complication] who end up perfectly normal,” Bethany recalled. “In the beginning, the doctors thought she might be just fine. But at 11 months she wasn’t sitting up or crawling or hitting any of the markers that she was supposed to.”

   That’s when Gracie’s first therapies started, along with the first of many tests. Today Gracie can walk short distances with support from an adult or her walker. She says “Mama” and “Dada” and signs “more” when she wants another Triscuit, her favorite snack. She’s calmer thanks to Frankie, the service dog the D’Albertos brought home last year. She enjoys when her little sister Cecilia, 7, reads Dora the Explorer books to her and helps her eat. But doctors from Syracuse to the National Institutes of Health are still unable to find a syndrome or condition that captures Gracie’s complex array of physical and cognitive disabilities.

   Not knowing what the future holds for Gracie can be hard for this tight-knit family.

Wife of abuse survivor shares her message of faith

By Connie Berry
Sun editor

Lorrie Frawley doesn’t want her husband Tim’s life to go unnoticed. Tim died during Holy Week in 2010 having never fully recovered from the sexual abuse he experienced by a priest from this diocese. Tim’s faith was so strong and so deep, Lorrie said, that he could not bear to hurt even his abuser. And he never stopped loving his church.

   Tim was an altar server, lector and on the parish council and always active in the parishes he attended. He and Lorrie were married for 20 years.

   Her family’s story is one of faith, family and friendship, Lorrie explained. Lorrie prayed that she would find a good, Catholic husband and her prayers were answered. They met on a blind date set up by mutual friends in August of 1989 and Tim proposed only a month later. They were both in their 30s, Lorrie said, and they knew they were brought together for a special reason. They loved each other very much. They were married May 18, 1990 at St. Joseph the Worker Church in Liverpool nine months later. They both had quotes from Scripture engraved in their wedding rings. Lorrie has Romans 8:28, “All things work together for good for those who love the Lord.”

    “Our faith was a very, very strong part of our relationship from the first day we met. It was the core of our relationship and our marriage,” Lorrie said. When they got married, Tim and Lorrie received a wedding gift from Msgr. George Sheehan. It was a plaque that reads, “Marriage takes three.” Lorrie said so many times over the years, especially after 2002, she would read the plaque and find peace and comfort in the words.